Death Of Breakfast

Did you eat breakfast today? Most people eat or drink something in the morning that one could define as breakfast, but most of us don't eat the old style heavy breakfast meals that the generation of physical workers did. Work today doesn't require consuming a large volume of food and calories to keep us going because most of those who work today are working at white collar or service industry jobs. What we eat for breakfast has changed as fast as your changing technologies.

I can't speak for other cultures on this, but I would think that the west is not the only one that has a smaller, less nutritious breakfast meal as the standard today. In the west, most people no longer eat the old style breakfast meal of stacks of pancakes, sausages, toast and jam, coffee and orange juice. They don't have the time to cook it or eat it, don't need it to function at work or school and have been bombarded with quick fix smaller plate alternatives.

I think that along with tea, juice or coffee, cereal might be the most popular breakfast food today. It's light, easy to prepare and eat and so sugary and addictive it's like having dessert for the morning meal. We get addicted to those cereal meals by our childhood fascination with the, TV advertisers endless sugary cereals to kids as they watch their morning cartoons on TV. That translates later in life to their eating phony "fiber", "natural", "multigrain" or other alleged "healthy cereal" that are, in reality, just a variation of the non nutritious, sugary cereal of their childhood.

If the breakfast diner doesn't like cereal there is usually a substitute made of a bagel, donut or sweet roll, or fruit in place of the cereal. Consistency in the breakfast meal is the norm. We seem to eat mostly the same few things for breakfast each day. The only time we have an old style "big breakfast" is on weekends (when we have the time for it) or when eating breakfast out.

I wonder if breakfast is not just down sizing, but disappearing for many. Some people actually drink a cola or other soft drink each morning and call it breakfast. They seem to function as alertly and efficiently at school or at work as those who eat a bigger breakfast. This makes me think the old adage about how eating a good breakfast makes us do better at school or work to be a myth. Whatever, breakfast is now the least important meal to most westerners. It may eventually become as unpopular as wearing a wrist watch is today.